Help for Those Alone for the Holidays

Online, November 19, 2009 (Newswire.com) - CreatingExtendedFamilies.com matches adults platonically to create surrogate extended family relationships. Matches are intended to develop over time into long term family like relationships -- sharing holidays, providing emotional support, and having someone who cares. The service matches adults both intergenerationally and peer to peer. It is available worldwide.

The idea for this service grew from the founder's many years of community service. Her volunteer work showed her time and again that there are people from all walks of life who are frequently missing one or more vital relationships in their life, whether it is never having children, always wishing they had a brother or sister, or loosing a parent through death or other circumstances. She decided to create a place where people looking for those missing relationships could find each other.

These missing relationships can be especially painful during the holiday season when some people are alone. In such cases, finding an activity or even companionship is not really the issue. What makes the experience so intensely painful is the fact that no one actually cares whether that person shares the holiday with them or not. This year there is a solution. There is a new online service designed to match people who are looking to take a friendship and develop it into a chosen family.

All too often we expect romantic relationships to fulfill all of our emotional needs, yet a complete extended family would create a much more powerful support network. For example, young adults raised in foster care may age out of the system without ever having bonded with parent figures. They may go on to get married and have children of their own, yet still miss having a mother or father figure in their life. Older couples who never had children may miss the opportunity to be a parent figure to a younger adult. Someone who grew up with only brothers may wish she had a sister. There are many such examples.

Creating Extended Families.com launched October 2009. It is the only service of its kind on the internet, and it is run by someone personally committed to helping users create extended family relationships. The profiles are free. No credit card information is even required, until a member has at least one match. The nominal yearly fee of $50 covers operations costs and allows for unlimited searching and matching.

Users can search for: parent figures individually as a mother or father figure; a couple as parent figures; son/daughter figures; and sibling relationships. It is entirely possible for a single user to search for several kinds of extended family relationships and, thereby, actually create a complete extended family. The site is also designed to be LGBT friendly.

The site can also be accessed via ChooseMyFamily.com.